


Returned

by skcm



Series: Waste [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pre-Relationship, tex and mac meet for the first time and maccready finds himself in her employ, tex's dad was a pile of garbage and it shows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 02:23:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5357360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skcm/pseuds/skcm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MacCready gapes at her-- actually stands still, stares, and is slack-jawed, because he has no idea where it came from, where it’s going, or why she thought it was necessary to share in the first place. “You’re pretty lively when you’re wasted, boss.”</p>
<p>“I’m not wasted, and I’m not your boss; Call me Tex.”</p>
<p>“Okay, Boss!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Returned

The broad, tall woman in a vault suit (supposedly ‘Clara Texas,’ even though she claims the tattoo on her ass just says ‘TEX,’whatever the heck kind of a name that is) passes her new hireling a handful of caps and their fingertips touch in the process. She thinks nothing of it, and he thinks even less, and by the time they’ve had a few whiskeys back at the bar in the sleazy little hole full of nothing called The Third Rail, and once Magnolia looks even hotter than before, the boss is a little loosened up; a welcome change, of course. She’s not drunk enough to be herself, though. There’s a latch on that door, holding back the worst jokes from two hundred years ago or otherwise, and the next few minutes drag on in relative silence while she fumbles with a shotglass.

She eventually clinks it down and it catches the merc’s attention away from shimmering sequins and swaying hips, so she lays it on the table for MacCready: “Wanna go to the fuckin’ library, guy?”

She isn’t using his name. She knows one of them, at least.

“ _What_?”

“Yeah, tough guy. You heard me: Wanna go to the fuckin’ library?”

“You’re basically asking me if I want to shoot muties in the head, so my answer is-- I mean, yeah, you hired me for a reason, right?”

And they’re drunk, so it seems like now is the time to shamble up the stairs and get their weapons ready prematurely, and strut out into the streets of Goodneighbor looking tough and competent, equally otherworldly and historic in their displayed mutual power.

Or they could just cling to opposite railings and wordlessly ascend the stairs, each staring longingly at the shut door and waiting for this night to be over already. That, or for a lot more booze.

Tex is the first to speak, as her nostrils flare and her face contorts. “Ugh. Goodneighbor smells like a fuckin’ garbage strike.”

“Garbage strike? What, like a swatter made of trash? Think I saw one of those at Daisy’s the other day.”

“No, dumbass! Like sanitation workers who want better pay.” She bounces on her heels, nostalgia rippling through her on an energetic current. Even chatting up some seedy merc about the good old days compared to the bad new nights gives her something to cling to. “I mean, even if the unions got busted up, guys still wanted their raises, y’know? ‘Cause inflation.”

“No, boss. I don’t know. At all.”

“I can explain better if you want.”

“I’m okay, actually. Can we get a move on?”

“Your funeral, Mac.”

The nickname sticks like a plastic bandage, ‘cause if he yanked it off, he’d lose some arm hair and a lot of dignity, and he’s not ready for either of those things, so he follows her lead.

Because she’s already down the block, curving out the Goodneighbor gate.

By the time MacCready catches up to Tex, she’s out of breath (but he isn’t, because at least _someone_ can pace himself) and they’re actually pretty close to the Boston Public Library already. Maybe they really will make some caps, get some things done, and bust a few heads if necessary. That falls under the ‘get things done’ category, though, doesn’t it?

It all seems pretty great until the boss opens her mouth again.

“You know what brisket is? This whole place, this whole fuckin’ Commonwealth smells like my father’s brisket, which he seasoned liberally with fucking Psycho so we wouldn’t taste it, or at least so we’d just keep eating it.”

MacCready gapes at her-- actually stands still, stares, and is slack-jawed, because he has no idea where it came from, where it’s going, or why she thought it was necessary to share in the first place. “You’re pretty lively when you’re wasted, boss.”

“I’m not wasted, and I’m not your boss; Call me Tex.”

“Okay, Boss!”

Tex squashes the urge to punch MacCready in the dick, because they’re outside the library and that’s just _uncouth_.

“Anyway,” the boss begins, as they approach a book return station and she pulls a little book from her pack, “Dad spiked the brisket with chems, and so I couldn’t really stop eating it, even though it smelled like about twelve asses.”

“And?” He’s humoring her.

“And that’s what the Commonwealth fucking smells like, Mac. Like dad’s burnt, shitty Psycho Brisket. I bet you don’t even know what brisket is, or what good brisket tastes like. I bet you never will.” Tex drops the book, a selection of pre-war children’s stories, down the hatch. The machine rumbles and spits out a few lousy tokens, which she considers momentarily before leaving them where they first fell.

MacCready already has his rifle’s sights trained on a hound across the room, his survival instincts honed where his boss seems to have nothing but brute strength and the gift of a heck of a lot of adrenaline as she dives into the fray, wielding a big, mahogany swatter, and for the first time in a while, MacCready is actually scared of something other than starvation, something other than mistakes he’s made in the past. He’s more afraid of the mistakes he’s making in the present, because they’re both a little tipsy still.

Somehow, against the backdrop of Tex’s shitty new world, they make it through together, short a fuck of a lot of stimpaks instead of a couple limbs or a couple lives. The boss and her merc wake up around the same time, each posted at either end of the main entryway, supposedly keeping watch, which was obviously not what happened, though neither is quick to point a finger at the other.

“We, uh, work well together. I think.” MacCready, still on the floor, a bundle of green and brown, yanks his hat over his eyes as daylight pours over Tex’s frame in the open doorway.

“Wake up, sleepyhead. Tick tock. We’re on the clock. Let’s get a move on!” She sounds like she’s talking to a child or a baby or something, but that might just be who she’s used to saying it to, softer and sweeter, and every morning at the same damn time, like it was ever going to make a difference.

**Author's Note:**

> this is totally out of chronological order now but i felt it would be good to write a bit about their first meeting and their first adventure together


End file.
